Clove's View: After The 74th Annual Hunger Games
by clove7031
Summary: Clove is not the big, monstrous girl you see in the movie, she has a soft side, and she shows that here. Clove visits home, and she makes a little friend...but who is that friend? Anyway, read on! This is a one book series- no continuing, sorry! My other story is part of a four-book series...or four-fanfiction-series...anyway READ ON AMIGOS!
1. Chapter 1

POROLOUGE

I can get her, finally! That girl from Twelve is now mine! But how can I kill her, when she is so innocent? I tell myself the same thing I tell myself every time: That I am one step closer to home. I hate my father, so I pretend her face is my father's. I would never kill anyone, unless it's my father. The same one who abandoned me. My knife is just about to cut her pretty little face, when the boy from Eleven jerks me up, and throws me on the ground. "CATO!" I scream. He has to come, he will save me. But no, the odds are apparently not in my favor. I feel something slam into my head, maybe a rock, and then the world goes blurry and I fall to the ground. I tell myself to keep breathing, in and out, in and out. But that can't stop the tears from flowing. I am dying.

I see my life flash before my eyes. Me at four years old watching my father leave me. Me at eight sleeping with my mother's photo in the community home. Me at ten, when I finally got a foster family. My first reaping. Training for the Games. Me getting chosen to play the Games. Me training in the Capitol. My interview. Me coming into the arena. And now, another picture flashes before me. The boy from Eleven slamming my head with the rock. Me lying here, waiting for death.

Cato finds me trying to breathe and collapses beside me. "No, Clove, no…" he starts. I can still the tears on his face, even though the world is now blurry. "Kill him for me, Cato….the boy….from Eleven." I say. How did this happen? Why did I kill all of those innocent kids? Why? Is that making me tell Cato to kill the boy from Eleven for me? I see Cato nod. "Clove…Clove…I love you….just like I would love a sister. Just remember that, okay?" he asks me. "Yes…I will…" it is getting harder to breathe, and I know my life is coming to an end. "Cato…I….I…I love you too..." I say as I watch him. I really do. We stare at each other for some time, then as I am blacking out, he kisses me goodbye on the forehead. I am thinking of why he did that when my eyes close, and the world fades away.


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

I hear something beeping, but I question myself. I am dead. I am dead. But then why are my ears listening to something? I feel a rush of energy at once, and I lift of my now strong body to look around. I am in the hospital of the training center, I think. I see all of the dead tributes' corpses lying on beds. All of them are dressed in what we wear when we go home, a white gown for girls and white slacks with a white shirt for boys. My dress ends at my knees, and I get up, but that's when I see it. My body is still lying on the bed, yet I am up and moving. Am I a ghost? I walk around, and that's when I see the date. The calendar is marked with our names on the days of our deaths. My death was on Day 13, and it is Day 18 today. I hear a horn-ish sound, and then I see another name appear on the death calendar. Cato. His body is wheeled into the emergency room. Since I am a ghost, I walk over there and scream when I see him. He is covered in blood, like he was mauled by a dog. I am thinking of that when the horns play again, but this time they are festive. I hear Claudius Templesmith's voice. "Congraulation to the victors of the 74th Annual Hunger Games: Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark!" I frown. Why did they win? Cato must have killed in the bloody finale. I am looking through the window of the operating theatre when I see the bite marks on his arms and the arrow in his head. He must have been attacked by the mutts, but still living when Katniss fired her arrow at him. Or maybe the other way. One of the doctors comes over and closes the window, but through his glasses' reflection, you can tell he can't see me. I am suddenly overwhelmed by the thought of Cato's death and I sink to the floor, crying. That's when I feel a small hand on my shoulder. "It's okay, we all have to die at some point, but our times came early." I snap my head around to see the little girl from Eleven standing beside me. Her voice is so sweet. Why did we kill her? "I….I…I'm sorry that we killed you. You did have a chance." I say to her. I think of all the other kids in the community home who were her age. About five of them died in the Games. It was sad to see such small and innocent kids die. This girl, she was only twelve. It was her first year in the reaping. I feel so sorry for the fact that this girl is now dead, and I hug her. "Why did I not stop Cato from sending Marvel to end you? You are so small…I am so cruel. How could I let you die?" I am still crying one her shoulder, and she makes me sit up and then she does something unexpected, she wipes the tears out of my eyes. "You're not cruel, you were just playing the Games. We all were. We all killed someone." she replies. I stop crying at hearing this.

I pick myself off the floor and follow the little girl into a room where it is just the two of us. "Okay, let's start from block one: My name is Rue, what is your name?" she starts. I grin. "Clove. I'm fifteen." I reply. We talk about home and everything, but my heart aches at the mention of home, even though no one I love is there anymore. Rue. The name just tells me, somehow, that this, her death, was bound to happen. She was named after such a sweet thing, a flower. After a while, she leads me to the dorms where we will live together forever. I ask why, and she replies that since we died young, our spirits are not able to enter the afterworld some people used to believe in long ago, before Panem. No one in Panem believes in the afterlife. But I guess there is one. We will wait here together until the youngest one of us, in this case Rue, can enter the afterlife, so we have to wait until she turns twenty, the permitted age of entry. "But, there is a catch: since we died together, all twenty-two of us must live together forever, even in the afterlife." Great. I will have to see the faces of all the kids I killed forever. Maybe they will forgive me. I know I will forgive the boy from Eleven. Anyone protecting Rue would kill to keep her safe.

Our dorms are exactly like the ones in the Training Center. Actually, the whole building we are in resembles the Training Center. We ride up the elevator to floor eleven, and I immediately know that Rue's friend is the boy from Eleven. Rue walks in the rooms, me following her, when the boy gets up. He slides his hand to protect Rue, but she tells him we are friends. "Thresh." He says while he extends his hand. "Clove." I reply harshly, but I still shake his hand. Rue just looks at us with confusion. "He killed me." I say. She understands and gives me a nod. "Thresh, if Clove forgives you, you can enter the afterlife, or your spirit will go back home forever, which is not a good thing." Rue tells us. "Fine, I forgive you, only because of Rue. I would kill you too if you threatened her." I tell him. He nods and walks away, I think to his bedroom. "Allies?" I ask. "Even though the Games are over, this creepy afterlife is not one to be walking in alone." Rue nods. "Oh my god! Rue! Check this out! Your death started a rebellion in District 11! All other districts are now joining!" screams the fox faced girl form Five. Rue shivers, and the three of us run towards the television. They play the full scene of Rue's death, and I am crying, but the part after gives me hope. Katniss is not as bad as I thought. She sang Rue to sleep, and she covered her in flowers, which is a symbol of rebellion. A man pushes his way out of line and beats up a peacekeeper. "Daddy.." Rue says when she sees the man beating up the peacekeeper. Then, the rest of the crowd screams and starts beating up peacekeepers. They are winning until back-ups come and defeat the crowd. "This is what we need: a rebellion. It's time those stupid Capitol people stop killing us!" says the boy from Nine, the one I killed. I am looking at him and thinking about if he will forgive me when all the tributes I killed come around me in a circle. Do they want to kill me? "We forgive you for killing us, because we too had to be forgiven." they all say. I smile and they smile as well.


	3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

I sit in the room with our corpses, and I see Cato. I am sitting on his bed, right next to him. The Capitol surgeons fixed him up pretty good. I see his ghost waking, his eyes fluttering. "Clove….is that you? Aren't you dead? I am too…I am dead…." He starts. "Cato!" I say his name with joy and hug him. He looks startled but hugs me back. He asks me again if he is dead, and I start crying, but I don't know why. He wipes my tears with his strong hand, and he asks me why I am crying. "We are, Cato….all of the tributes have to live together forever here, and when the loving couple comes, they'll be with the other victors. We are in the Hall of the Tributes, of the row where you can see multiple training buildings, each holding the various dead tributes. Our building is number seventy-four, the number of our Games…" I stop crying, and I say, "I want you to meet someone…I think you'll remember Miele." Miele is Cato's little sister, who is twelve now. She resembles Rue so much.

I take Cato upstairs to the District 11 floor, where Thresh and Rue talk. Thresh stares at Cato. Rue smiles to see me and Cato together. Rue tells Cato everything he needs to do to get into the afterlife, and he asks Thresh if he is forgiven. Thresh asks him why he killed him, and Cato says he did it to avenge my death. I smile, and Rue does too. Thresh killed me to avenge Rue. Thresh nods his head and says that he forgives Cato. Cato asks me if he has to forgive everyone, and I say yes. I hope the tributes he killed are as forgiving as the ones I killed. Cato and Thresh, now buddies, walk to the elevator together, and they say they will visit each of the tributes Cato killed. "So…it's just me and my friend Rue now…right?" I ask. Rue smiles, then she gasps. "I forgot Clove, but once you die and everyone forgives you, you can visit any dead relatives or anyone who is in Panem that is dead, and you can also see anyone living through the crystal ball in the lobby." She tells me. I know who I want to see immediately. "Mom…..she died fifteen years ago, while giving birth to me." I smile and ask Rue to take me home.

We go to the lobby, where there is a teleporter to each of the districts, or the ghost versions, since we can't leave this world. I see the crystal ball in the corner and change my mind. Maybe I could spy on my dad first, since the ball is so close to me now. I head towards it and the ball asks me who I would like to see. "Ceaser Furhman" I say, and I instantly see a real life image of my dad. I try to touch it, but only the screen fades a little. "Ahh…finally I get that pesky little twerp out of my life. Yes! Clove is dead! I am free! She and Athena are finally gone! I am free! I hated those two anyway, and murdering Athena was exciting, but I let Clove go crazy in the orphanage, or did, until she was adopted. Either way, I am a free man! Yes!" I hear him scream. I instantly wish for a knife and feel one in my pocket. I love the room service here. I run back, with Rue behind me, then since no one is in my path, I throw it at the image of my dad. I fall to the ground, crying silently. Rue hugs me and says everything will be okay, and at least I can see my mom. "But he killed her! My dad killed my mother! But when? I have grown up hearing that she died the day I was born….but she wasn't…when was she killed?" I sob into Rue's tiny hug. "Clove….I know that knowing this is a big deal, but if you want answers, you can ask your mom. You can visit her in person, or in ghost." She smiles, and I do too. She is so sweet; she just cracked a joke to make me stop crying. It worked. "Come on, let's go visit your mom." She says as she leads me to the District 2 portal. As the training center disappears, I thank Rue. She is a perfect friend.

I don't know how, but I feel scared of meeting my mom. I have never seen her before, and I wonder if she hates me as much as dad did. Rue holds my hand as my home district appears. She has never been here before. I see the part of my huge district where I lived; it was called Colorado a couple hundred years before the founding of Panem. The Hunger Games take place in early August, so I walk around my city in late August. I see everything from my childhood here. I see the paved streets, with the school and training academy next to each other. Across the street is the mayor's house, with the peacekeepers training facility around the house. It is huge, so we had to take the train to school. The mayor and some high ranking peacekeepers use personal cars. About five miles away from the training academy is where the people live, in houses that once used to be called townhouses. Each house is joined with five others in one row, and then there is a gap before starting the next house "pod" as we kids call it. The neighborhood stretches for about five miles. On the opposite side of the school is the train station we use to go from town to town or to go to work. We used school buses to go to school. If you go a little bit further on the road with the train station (we call it Justice Trail) is the majestic Justice Building. There is a small ally stretching from the Justice Building to the train station used to deliver goods and tributes to the Capitol. There is a curvy road extending from the public train station (we call it windy lane) that takes you to the warehouses for the goods we produce. After that, the mines. There is a fence at the end of the windy lane so only workers come in. School used to make us take a field trip to the mines every year. One year, a group of kids there, I think they were twelve year olds, got stuck in a mine explosion. About ten of the twenty-five kids in the class died. Now we just tour the outside.

Rue asks me what I used to do in my free time. I told her that I barely had any. "Seriously," I said "Just look at my schedule: get up at 7:00, school bus comes at around 8:30, so I needed to be at the bus stop at 8:25, school starts at 9:00, gets out at 4:00, but training right after. Training bus comes 4:15, training starts at 4:30, it's a two mile ride, which takes five minutes, but we have to change into our clothes and warm up. Training ends at 6:00, by time I get home it was 6:30, then I had dinner. At 7:00, I would take out my horrible ninth grade masonry homework, really doing homework about quarry mines and about how the different kinds of stone look in a house sucks. After that, at around 8:00, I had to clean the house since my horrible dad just went to sleep, and that takes time when your dad just throws everything everywhere and wants the house spotless in the morning. 9:30 I usually finish, sometimes later. At around 9:45, after taking a shower, I take a break before bed. 10:00, bed." Rue just nods. "We have schedules like that at home, but without the training."

"Rue, I think that it is time to meet my mother….are you in?" I ask with a smile. She nods and jumps up and down when I tell her we will be using the train to go to the neighborhoods. The train is full of the ghosts of those who died while in District 2, all tributes revive in the Training Center. I talk to many of my mom's old friends, and after talking to some elders, we arrive. Almost half the bus gets off since this is practically the only residential area in our part of the district. I step off and sniff the air. It smells exactly like home. We walk down the lane and arrive at my house, the nice little house that is built of red brick and has the flower bed my mom asked to install when she was alive. After she died, I had no time at all to care for them. I go in and smile. I head upstairs to my room, my mother isn't home, so I will wait. I show Rue the room. The chandelier hangs from the middle of the room, and my bed sits on its perfect white drawer frame on the far left side of the room, next to the windows that bend with the wall. There is a small nightstand next to my bed, and a set of drawers on the wall with the bending windows. My closet is to my right, I am standing where the door is, directly in front of the bed. Rue just stands there, her mouth open as she looks at the house waiting for her. "Show me your house tomorrow." She just nods. I hear the door swing open downstairs and grab Rue by the hand. "I think she is home!" I say excitedly. We go down the stairs, but stop at the bottom when my mom hears us. She looks at Rue, and asks her name. when she changes her gaze to me, her mouth drops open and she runs toward me and embraces me. She starts crying, and I hug her tight as I cry too. "Mom…it's me, Clove…" I say in between my sobs. She lets go of me to compose herself and so do I. "Well, your little friend there is a guest, so why don't you sit down?" she says as she gestures towards me. We sit. "Can you start? I can't understand when, why, and who killed you…" she says, the tears reforming. "Rue, you can stay, it is okay…do we really look alike?" I know it's a stupid question. I look exactly like a fifteen year-old version of her, with the same light skin, the same dark brown jet-straight hair, the same grey eyes, the same freckles, the same tiny nose, the same short, skinny form. "Well….yeah! Can't you see?" she asks as I give her my sly smile I gave in the arena before throwing knives everywhere.

"Okay mom, let's start, but I assure you: it's a long story about just how I died…" I say.


	4. Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

"So, mom…how are you doing?" I ask after I see the tears threatening to spill from her eyes, but I have only told her about the last fourteen years….she has no idea that I was a tribute. I know that after the Games, the Capitol's tv channel about the Games let you select which Games you want to watch, and from the point of view of which tribute. It starts from the reaping. "As for my death, let's watch television first…." I say as I turn the television on. "Close your eyes, open them when I tell you. You must watch everything, no matter how bad it gets. And…..I just want to say that I am sorry first…" She closes her eyes and I show Rue how the whole T.V. thing works. She is surprised. I turn on the 74th Games, and put in on my name. it asks if I want to start and after I tell my mom to open her eyes, I click the "play" button. I walk upstairs, and tell her and Rue to watch closely on this year's tributes….

I go into my bedroom and sit there, waiting for the time to pass. I guess that finally have a time to rest today, and I take that time to reflect on everything. It's all fine, except for the part about my dad's horrible mind…..I wish for a poster of my dad and some knives, and the poster just appears out of nowhere on the bed. I hang it up on the wall and get my hundred knives ready. I spend the last couple hours just throwing knives at my dad's face, and I don't notice, but Rue and my mom are watching me throw the last three, the last one that I throw while spinning around. I gasp when I see them, partly because of them seeing my way of taking out anger, and the other part for seeing the waterworks my mom has on. I hug both of them, and after wiping all of our tears, my mom asks the worst question as we sit on my bed. "Clove, honey, I am sorry, but I want to ask…..what made you kill those kids?" Her eyes look hallow as she asks me. "I thought of dad….and since I am a Career, I could not let the district down…." I say, my eyes looking down. "I never thought that you, my daughter, would do that…but then again, honor is a really huge thing in the real home…our tributes are shamed if they do not kill…" she begins, and she just nods after, which tells me that she understands. I smile. "Thanks, mom. I really wish dad never killed you…" I start, but I stop when she drops the glass she was holding. "Just….what….did…..he….tell….you…?"she asks in a tone that reminds me of mine in the arena. "Nothing…I looked through the conch ball…" I say, and she nods. "Trust me, he did murder me. Like that girl from Twelve who you were going to kill…" I gasp. I hate my dad even more after hearing this.

The rest of the night goes along sort of like this. I learn about the deep conflict between my parents, and eventually it's time for me and Rue to go home. Tomorrow we go to District 11. Once we get back to the Training Center, I go up to my floor and bid goodbye to Rue. Then I go in my room and sleep. I don't even bother to change clothes.


	5. Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE

I kick the pebble, denting the soft cloth my green flats are made out of. Today I visited District 11. Today I saw Rue's life. I have never seen so much hunger, so much pain, yet so much hope is there, within the real District 11. Today was Rue's birthday. Rue took the day to walk around her real home, but I just stood and watched. The world is so different, District 2 and 11 seem like different worlds. I guess that my story comes to an end here. I have seen the world, the problems, the mercy so in the most hopeless places. This is my world. As much as I hate it, it is my home. But I am going to change. I will prove to the ghost of District 2 that I am not a killer. I have already done so with the Training Center. I am no longer the Clove you saw in the Hunger Games. I am a new Clove. Brighter, wiser, yet still just plain, tiny Clove. I will live my life to the best. Here is where I take my leave. Goodbye, Panem.

~Clove F., District 2 tribute in the 74th Annual Hunger Games

THE END


End file.
